April 29, 2008

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When oil prices skyrocket, inevitably Republicans will talk about drilling in Alaska and blame Democrats for blocking proposals that would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for petroleum exploration.

Few people have bothered asking exactly how much oil might be produced if the Arctic refuge is opened up. The answer: not much in the scheme of things _ around 1 million barrels per day. And the Alaska oil wouldn't hit the market for another 10 years.

According to this report from the Department of Energy, at its peak capacity in 2025, ANWR would produce 1 million barrels of oil a day, only reducing world oil prices around 30 cents to 50 cents a barrel. Even if all the ANWR oil stayed in the United States, it wouldn't dramatically affect the nation's 20 million barrel a day oil consumption habit. And isn't this quaint _ the 2004 report linked above is based on a $27 a barrel cost of oil. Today oil is going for close to $120 a barrel.

The Energy Department report, which was published during the last vigorous ANWR debate in 2004, notes that oil imports might be reduced by a mere 4 percent, so the country would be importing 66 percent of its oil from foreign countries instead of 70 percent. And none of this would happen until 2025.

"The impact on world oil prices is not expected to be significant," the report says.

Democratic counterproposals to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve wouldn't have much of an impact either. According to various reports, this maneuver might reduce gas by five to ten cents.

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hey, every little bit would help at this point. ANWR was stopped 14 years ago, so after drilling/production time of 10 years, this would be in our tanks now. What about the massive find in N. Dakota too?

What a brilliant rationalization: It's not enough so let's do nothing. Brilliant!
Hey, since reducing CO2 emissions won't do anything to help the environment then we should do nothing there either. Brilliant!
BTW, the Dakota find is more like a sludge and I understand would cost quite a bit more the refine than normal.

100 billion barrels (bbl) in North Dakota, 1.2 trillion barrels in shale oil in the Rockies, 1.5 trillion barrels in coal states in coal diesel which Henry Waxman is blocking. We could get to ALL of it at it for about $35 a barrel. Plus at least 100 bbl in offshore areas. Cuba/China will steal at least 10 billion barrels off Key West soon.
Obama's Illinois ALONE has more coal diesel than the Saudis have in oil reserves (260 billion barrels). The coal in Utah that Clinton made a park to benefit Indonesia has more coal diesel than the Saudis have oil.
Thank Al Gore Libs and meek Republicans. If we went after this energy, IslamoFacism would be a non-issue in about a week. We would only sell food to our friends. We have the energy here. Tax it (which we already do) and plant 2 billion trees at $1 a pop and that will help the fictional CO2 problem. Al Gore and the Libs are making energy companies very wealthy.